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Monday, April 21, 2014

Mailbox Monday (4/21/14 edition)

Mailbox Monday is hosted by a different blog each month. See the official list here. I've received a few new books recently:

The Conditions of Love by Dale M. Kushner Reviewing for TLC Book Tours

Dale M. Kushner's novel The Conditions of Love
traces the journey of a girl from childhood to adulthood as she reckons
with her parents' abandonment, her need to break from society's
limitations, and her overwhelming desire for spiritual and erotic love.
In 1953, ten-year-old Eunice lives in the backwaters of Wisconsin with
her outrageously narcissistic mother, a manicureesteand movie
star worshipper. Abandoned by her father as an infant, Eunice worries
that she will become a misfit like her mother. When her mother's lover,
the devoted Sam, moves in, Eunice imagines her life will finally become
normal. But her hope dissolves when Sam gets kicked out, and she is
again alone with her mother. A freak storm sends Eunice away from all
things familiar. Rescued by the shaman-like Rose, Eunice's odyssey
continues with a stay in a hermit's shack and ends with a passionate
love affair with an older man. Through her capacity to redefine herself,
reject bitterness and keep her heart open, she survives and flourishes.
In this, she is both ordinary and heroic. At once fable and realistic
story, The Conditions of Love is a book about emotional and physical survival. Through sheer force of will, Eunice saves herself from a doomed life.

This
engaging examination of a mother and daughter's relationship will
appeal to the same audience that embraced Mona Simpson's acclaimed
classic Anywhere But Here and Elizabeth Strout's bestselling Amy and Isabelle.

Kicking the Sky by Anthony De Sa Won from LibraryThing

In 1977, a shoeshine
boy, Emanuel Jacques, was brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. In the
aftermath of the crime, Antonio Rebelo, the twelve-year-old narrator of
this story, explores his Portuguese neighborhood s dark garages and
labyrinthine back alleys, along with his rapscallion friends. The boys
develop a curious relationship with a charismatic, modern-day Fagin, a
fledgling master over an amoral world of young hustlers, theft, and
drugs.

As the media unravels the truth behind the shoeshine-boy
murder, Antonio starts to see his family and his neighborhood as never
before. He becomes aware of the dashed hopes of immigrants, of the
influence of faith and the role of church, and of the frightening
reality that no one is really taking care of him. So intent are his
parents and his neighbors on keeping the old traditions alive that they
act as if they still live in a small Portuguese village, not in a big
city that puts their kids in the kind of danger they would not dare
imagine.

Antonio learns about bravery and cowardice, life and
death, and the heart s capacity for love and for unremitting hatred in
this stunning coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of a true
crime that shook an entire city.

The Thing with Feathers by Noah StryckerFrom the publisher

An entertaining and profound look at the lives of birds, illuminating their surprising world—and deep connection with humanity.

Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is
dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As
scientists come to understand more about the secrets of bird life, they
are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, game theory, and the
nature of intelligence itself.

The Thing with Feathers explores
the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of
fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft
artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, the
lifelong loves of albatross, and other mysteries—revealing why birds do
what they do, and offering a glimpse into our own nature.

Noah
Strycker is a birder and naturalist who has traveled the world in
pursuit of his flighty subjects. Drawing deep from personal experience,
cutting-edge science, and colorful history, he spins captivating stories
about the birds in our midst and reveals the startlingly intimate
coexistence of birds and humans. With humor, style, and grace, he shows
how our view of the world is often, and remarkably, through the
experience of birds.

Beautiful and wise, funny and insightful, The Thing with Feathers is a gripping and enlightening journey into the lives of birds.

Natchez Burning by Greg IlesReviewing for TLC Book Tours#1 New York Times
bestselling novelist Greg Iles returns with his most eagerly anticipated
book yet, and his first in five years – Natchez Burning, the first
installment in an epic trilogy that weaves crimes, lies, and secret past
and present into a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern mayor and
former prosecutor Penn Cage.

Dark Eden by Chris BeckettFrom the publisher

On the alien, sunless
planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family shelter beneath the
light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie
the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so
profound that no man has ever crossed it.

The Oldest among the
Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where
men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought
us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers
to return.

But young John Redlantern will break the laws of
Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old
ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.

Already
remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as
literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a
truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose
that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

The Untold by Courtney Collins Through Netgalley

Originally titled The Burial when published in Australia in 2012.

With shades of Water for Elephants and True Grit,
a stunning debut novel set in the Australian outback about a female
horse thief, her bid for freedom, and the two men trying to capture her.

It is 1921. In a mountain-locked valley, Jessie is on the run.Born
wild and brave, by twenty-six she has already lived life as a circus
rider, horse and cattle rustler, and convict. But on this fateful night
she is just a woman wanting to survive though there is barely any life
left in her.Two men crash through the bushland, desperate to claim the reward on her head: one her lover, the other the law.But
as it has always been for Jessie, it is death, not a man, who is her
closest pursuer and companion. And while all odds are stacked against
her, there is one who will never give up on her—her own child, who
awaits her.

Close Reach by Jonathan Moore Through Netgalley

In a riveting
tale of suspense and terror on the high seas, Jonathan Moore pits human
beings against nature—and something far deadlier: one another.

Kelly Pratihari-Reid and her husband sail their yacht into Antarctic
waters, thinking their gravest concerns will be ice and storms—and their
cracked marriage. A British girl shrieking across a short-range VHF
frequency ends that illusion. It’s coming, she screams. It saw us and it’s coming back!
Her voice is drowned by a tide of signal-jamming static, and Kelly sees
a target on the radar screen: A ship is coming for them.

Thus
begins an unforgettable cat-and-mouse game across stormy polar seas and
dire landfalls. Kelly’s pursuers will test her to the limits of her
endurance—and beyond. For the ship in her wake is crewed by pirates,
with a young leader trained to use the most sadistic tortures in pursuit
of his ultimate objective . . . a goal as shocking as it is horrific.

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden Through Netgalley

From the Scotiabank
Giller Prize-Winning author of Through Black Spruce comes a literary
masterpiece steeped in the natural beauty and blood-soaked brutality of
our country’s formative years

A visceral portrait of life at a
crossroads, The Orenda opens with a brutal massacre and the kidnapping
of the young Iroquois Snow Falls, a spirited girl with a special gift.
Her captor, Bird, is an elder and one of the Huron Nation’s great
warriors and statesmen. It has been years since the murder of his family
and yet they are never far from his mind. In Snow Falls, Bird
recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter and sees the girl possesses
powerful magic that will be useful to him on the troubled road ahead.
Bird’s people have battled the Iroquois for as long as he can remember,
but both tribes now face a new, more dangerous threat from afar.

Christophe,
a charismatic Jesuit missionary, has found his calling amongst the
Huron and devotes himself to learning and understanding their customs
and language in order to lead them to Christ. An emissary from distant
lands, he brings much more than his faith to the new world.

As
these three souls dance each other through intricately woven acts of
duplicity, small battles erupt into bigger wars and a nation emerges
from worlds in flux.

Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander SmithThrough Netgalley

What if overcoming the
legacy of American slavery meant bringing back that very institution? A
young black attorney is thrown headlong into controversial issues of
race and power in this page-turning and provocative new novel.

Martin
Grey, a smart, talented black lawyer working out of a storefront in
Queens, becomes friendly with a group of some of the most powerful,
wealthy, and esteemed black men in America. He’s dazzled by
what they’ve accomplished, and they seem to think he has the
potential to be as successful as they are. They invite him for a weekend
away from it all—no wives, no cell phones, no talk of
business. But far from home and cut off from everyone he loves, he
discovers a disturbing secret that challenges some of his deepest
convictions…

Martin finds out that his glittering new
friends are part of a secret society dedicated to the preservation of
the institution of slavery—but this time around, the black men
are called “Master.” Joining them seems to
guarantee a future without limits; rebuking them almost certainly
guarantees his death. Trapped inside a picture-perfect, make-believe
world that is home to a frightening reality, Martin must find a way out
that will allow him to stay alive without becoming the very thing he
hates.

A novel of rage and compassion, good and evil, trust and betrayal, Forty Acres is the thought-provoking story of one man’s desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a terrifying new moral order.